Overview

Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of artists — a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer, and a handful of novelists — Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain’s malleability; how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cézanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language — a full half-century before the work of Noam Chomsky and other linguists. It’s the ultimate tale of art trumping science. More broadly, Lehrer shows that there’s a cost to reducing everything to atoms and acronyms and genes. Measurement is not the same as understanding, and art knows this better than science does. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first-rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science and art to listen more closely to each other, for willing minds can combine the best of both, to brilliant effect.

Product Details

About the Author

Jonah Lehrer is a Contributing Editor at Wired and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. He writes the Head Case column for The Wall Street Journal and regularly appears on WNYC’s Radiolab. His writing has also appeared in Nature, The New York Times Magazine, Scientific American and Outside. He’s the author of two previous books, Proust Was A Neuroscientist and How We Decide. He graduated from Columbia University and attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Editorial Reviews

His book marks the arrival of an important new thinker, who finds in the science and the arts wonder and beauty, and with equal confidence says wise and fresh things about both.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Jonah Lehrer provides a fresh and unique look at eight of the artists who define modern culture." --Billy Collins, former poet laureate

“In this book, Jonah Lehrer shows us brilliantly that the process of cooking is more than chemistry." --Jacques Pepin

"Writing with effortless brilliance and astonishing clarity, Jonah Lehrer gives us . . . a beautiful book: I was enthralled by it." --Robert D. Richardson, author of William James (winner of the Bancroft Prize) and Emerson

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New WritersSince the dawn of the modern age, science's greatest contribution to the world has been its ability to unravel the mystery, to break down the inner working of the universe to its component parts: atoms and genes. Its greatest detriment to the world has been its unfettered desire to play with and alter them: science for science's sake, as if it offered the only path to knowledge.

According to Lehrer, when it comes to the human brain, the world of art unraveled such mysteries long before the neuroscientists: "This book is about artists who anticipated the discoveries of science…who discovered truths about the human mind…that science is only now discovering." Proust Was a Neuroscientist is a dazzling inquiry into the nature of the mind and of the truths harvested by its first explorers: artists like Walt Whitman, George Eliot, Auguste Escoffier, Marcel Proust, Paul Cézanne, Igor Stravinsky, Gertrude Stein, and Virginia Woolf. What they understood intuitively and expressed through their respective art forms -- the fallibility of memory, the malleability of the brain, the subtleties of vision, and the deep structure of language -- science has only now begun to measure and confirm.

Blending biography, criticism, and science writing, Lehrer offers a lucid examination of eight artistic thinkers who lit the path toward a greater understanding of the human mind and a deeper appreciation of the ineffable mystery of life.
(Holiday 2007 Selection)

Jonah Lehrer's smart, elegantly written little book expresses an appealing faith that art and science offer different but complementary views of the world. His main argument, that artists have often intuited essential truths about human nature that are later verified by scientific research, is hardly new. But he pursues this argument with freshness and enthusiasm in eight enjoyable case studies studded with arresting sentences that voice the 25-year-old author's delighted sense of discovery.The Washington Post

Wendy Smith

…a precocious and engaging book that tries to mend the century-old tear between the literary and scientific cultures.The New York Times

D. T. Max

With impressively clear prose, Lehrer explores the oft-overlooked places in literary history where novelists, poets and the occasional cookbook writer predicted scientific breakthroughs with their artistic insights. The 25-year-old Columbia graduate draws from his diverse background in lab work, science writing and fine cuisine to explain how Cézanne anticipated breakthroughs in the understanding of human sight, how Walt Whitman intuited the biological basis of thoughts and, in the title essay, how Proust penetrated the mysteries of memory by immersing himself in childhood recollections. Lehrer's writing peaks in the essay about Auguste Escoffier, the chef who essentially invented modern French cooking. The author's obvious zeal for the subject of food preparation leads him into enjoyable discussions of the creation of MSG and the decidedly unappetizing history of 18th- and 19th-century culinary arts. Occasionally, the science prose risks becoming exceedingly dry (as in the enthusiastic section detailing the work of Lehrer's former employer, neuroscientist Kausik Si), but the hard science is usually tempered by Lehrer's deft way with anecdote and example. Most importantly, this collection comes close to exemplifying Lehrer's stated goal of creating a unified "third culture" in which science and literature can co-exist as peaceful, complementary equals. 21 b&w illus. (Nov.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
Publishers Weekly

Would George Eliot have been better looking if she'd put on a pair of lab goggles? Would Paul Cezanne have seen any better?Eliot, of course, has been the bane of unwilling high-school students for generations. The scientifically inclined among them, however, might thrill to find out that she had a fine sense of how the mind works. So profound were her inklings of human psychology, in fact, that fledgling science writer Lehrer is moved to remark, "the best metaphor for our DNA is literature ...our genome is defined not by the certainty of its meaning, but by...its ability to encourage a multiplicity of interpretations." In these pleasingly fluent essays, Lehrer examines the lives and works of several artists who, in one way or another, have shed light on our nature. Walt Whitman gave testimony to the phantom-limb phenomenon whereby neural sensation can be active even when the nerves don't connect to their former endings. Cezanne delved into the mysteries of perception, deepening the impressions of the impressionists to come up with a kind of radical abstraction that, by Lehrer's view, points to the fact that "everything we see is an abstraction," a confederacy of illusions. Auguste Escoffier knew the workings of the mouth and nose so well that he was able to divine the essence of umami. Few of these worthies had any idea that they were contributing to 21st-century brain science (though, interestingly, Whitman had intimations). Lehrer could probably have picked any random dozen culturistas and come up with a similar argument, and sometimes his reading of culture is a little too general. T. S. Eliot's remark was not that "spring" is "the cruelest time," but that April is the cruelest month,a thought weighted with precision. Yet Lehrer's book makes a nice bridging of the two cultures, introducing art to scientists and science to artists. Solid science journalism with an essayist's flair.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Not only does the author have a complete and up-to-date understanding of the latest research in neuroscience, he must also have a broad grasp of literature, philosophy and the arts (even cooking!) to write so engagingly about the connections between neuroscience and these diverse areas. Linking the current understanding about how the brain works with each of these diverse arts the reader gets a deeper understanding of how we deal with life. What is it about music that moves us? What drove the evolution of art from realism to modern forms of art? What makes us like a painting. The history of science figured into all of the stories as it drove changes in literature and philosophy as each metaphore of science became the latest influence ie the clockwork universe of Newton, and the steam engine metaphore that influenced Freud.
When I finished the book I understood not only what infuenced the great authors, artists, poets, musicians and cooks but why people then and now find them interesting. And, of course, all this erudition is the background for illustrating the working of the mind in a delightful way.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

The material in the book is fascinating and current. The book is great because it makes the science it describes interesting for those with a science background and simultaneously for those who know little to nothing about science.

Anonymous

More than 1 year ago

I bought this book because it had my favorite cookie on the cover but I have become so incredibly obsessed with modern science because of it. The author has a knack for making science seem exciting and cool. I can't recommend this book enough!!

rayzern

More than 1 year ago

I love this author; perhaps I am late to get onto the neuroscience bandwagon, but I found this to be a very well-written and provocative book, though a little short in length and short on conclusions. I read &quot;Imagine&quot; as well and found them both to be very interesting and well-written books. I want to encourage this author and will probably buy his books in the future, as long as he truly puts some effort into them. I love to read books like this which do not assume the reader is an idiot. Good read and I definitely appreciate his research and thoughtfulness. Would definitely recommend.

cantstopreading39

More than 1 year ago

Connecting his experience in science with knowledge of arts and artists, Lehrer provides challenging and exciting insights into how we work and what is possible to human intelligence. He explores various artists' achievements in literature, music, painting and cooking and shows how they foreshadowed scientific discoveries. Left me pondering each point and exploring where else the same ideas may apply. If you're ready to stretch your mind, this is your starting point.

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lorraine4075

More than 1 year ago

This book has been the topic of more late night discussions than any book I have read in 10 years! A must read!
And not just for the scientifically inquisitive. Thought provoking and enlightening, without being too obtuse. Worthy of multiple reads in order to sift through all the tasty tidbits and make notes of the books, artists and chefs you're dying to revisit!

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Willy

More than 1 year ago

After reading, I viewed the workings of the brain in a new light--especially the material on the truthfulness of one's memories.

Guest

More than 1 year ago

Book was very creative and informative. Especially liked how he addressed the latest on how each of the senses functioned with the brain.